- Goleta, California, United States
Mary Hancock
University of California, Santa Barbara, History, Faculty Member
This introduces a roundtable on the articulations of religious practices and imaginaries with the creation and re-making of urban landscapes in Bangalore (India), Vinh City (Vietnam), Houston and New Orleans (USA). While recognizing that... more
This introduces a roundtable on the articulations of religious practices and imaginaries with the creation and re-making of urban landscapes in Bangalore (India), Vinh City (Vietnam), Houston and New Orleans (USA). While recognizing that urban expressions of religion are articulated with political and economic forces, this collection shifts the focus to the spatial, material, and sensory media with which the religious and the spiritual are enacted within urban life worlds. We aim to advance a critical intervention in the analysis of religion and spirituality, but also to map the ways that different publics create designs for and of urban life through religious and spiritual practices that may celebrate, interrogate, or challenge modernist, liberal, or postcolonial/postsocialist programs and geographies.
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This article introduces a symposium on religion and the formation of modern urban space in Asia and Africa. Both the spread of new religious movements and the articulations between religion, globalization and neoliberalism have prompted... more
This article introduces a symposium on religion and the formation of modern urban space in Asia and Africa. Both the spread of new religious movements and the articulations between religion, globalization and neoliberalism have prompted new analyses of the shifting geographic and social boundaries between 'religious' and 'secular'institutions, practices and discourses, and about the meaning of 'religion'itself. We reinscribe work on urban religion within a discussion of 'modernity' by dealing with the socio-spatial mediation of religion and its role in redefining public spaces, practices, norms and discourses in contemporary cities. Individual articles map the spaces engendered by religious imaginaries and the forms of mobility and networks that religion relies on and constitutes, and they identify and analyze the roles played by mass media in religious practice and institution building, as well as the embodied nature of urban religious experience. They demonstrate how urban studies can be 'pluralized' and 'vernacularized' through analyses of how the urban realm is constituted in part through religious practice and meaning. Our attention to the articulation of religion with cities in Asia and Africa will also help to foster a new theoretical vocabulary within religious studies that is attentive to the historical, cultural and spatial contingencies of religion as a category of analysis.
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This paper deals with the contending visions of self and community that are imagined, enacted, and critiqued in the social space of religious institutions. It focuses specifically on the ideological claims made on Hindu temples during the... more
This paper deals with the contending visions of self and community that are imagined, enacted, and critiqued in the social space of religious institutions. It focuses specifically on the ideological claims made on Hindu temples during the 1990s in Chennai, a large south Indian city that has seen capitalist transformation and increased Hindu nationalist sentiment during the past decade. While temples at times have served as stages for nationalist claims, more often they are visible in consumer and tourist discourses as nostalgia-infused emblems of Indie "traditions." As such, they are popularly described as being threatened less by Muslims and Christians than by unplanned and speculative development. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research, 1 focus on the competing visions of modernity and publicity that are engendered in the contentious relations among temple constituencies in the context of recent debates on "her-itage." These debates reveal that Hindu temples are sites on which pasts are imagined, encountered, and deployed in a variety of ways—bodily practices, prayers, mythic narratives, iconic images—and 1 argue that these are media for vernacular expressions of modernity. [ N THE FIRST DECADE OF INDIAN independence, Hindu temples were identified as sites for the "pedagogies and perform-ances" of postcolonial nationalism and the political modernity that it represents (Bhabha 1994). 1 The 1961 Census included an enumeration of Hindu temples in the southern Indian state of Madras, now Tamil Nadu. The authors suggested that Hindu temples in particular those of southern India—represented the cultural space of the nation and, more, that they engendered attachments that informed citizenship and national belonging,
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... characterized their concerns and practices as such; see, for example, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur's comments cited ... See, LT, 'To Sin in Ignorance is not to Sin', Stri Dharma (hereafter SD), 1931 ...... more
... characterized their concerns and practices as such; see, for example, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur's comments cited ... See, LT, 'To Sin in Ignorance is not to Sin', Stri Dharma (hereafter SD), 1931 ... 35 M. Ramanathan, Sister RS Subbalakshmi (Bombay, Lok Vangmaya Griha, 1989), p. 29. ...
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AbstractThis article introduces a symposium on religion and the formation of modern urban space in Asia and Africa. Both the spread of new religious movements and the articulations between religion, globalization and neoliberalism have... more
AbstractThis article introduces a symposium on religion and the formation of modern urban space in Asia and Africa. Both the spread of new religious movements and the articulations between religion, globalization and neoliberalism have prompted new analyses of the shifting geographic and social boundaries between ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ institutions, practices and discourses, and about the meaning of ‘religion’ itself. We reinscribe work on urban religion within a discussion of ‘modernity’ by dealing with the socio-spatial mediation of religion and its role in redefining public spaces, practices, norms and discourses in contemporary cities. Individual articles map the spaces engendered by religious imaginaries and the forms of mobility and networks that religion relies on and constitutes, and they identify and analyze the roles played by mass media in religious practice and institution building, as well as the embodied nature of urban religious experience. They demonstrate how urban studies can be ‘pluralized’ and ‘vernacularized’ through analyses of how the urban realm is constituted in part through religious practice and meaning. Our attention to the articulation of religion with cities in Asia and Africa will also help to foster a new theoretical vocabulary within religious studies that is attentive to the historical, cultural and spatial contingencies of religion as a category of analysis.This article introduces a symposium on religion and the formation of modern urban space in Asia and Africa. Both the spread of new religious movements and the articulations between religion, globalization and neoliberalism have prompted new analyses of the shifting geographic and social boundaries between ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ institutions, practices and discourses, and about the meaning of ‘religion’ itself. We reinscribe work on urban religion within a discussion of ‘modernity’ by dealing with the socio-spatial mediation of religion and its role in redefining public spaces, practices, norms and discourses in contemporary cities. Individual articles map the spaces engendered by religious imaginaries and the forms of mobility and networks that religion relies on and constitutes, and they identify and analyze the roles played by mass media in religious practice and institution building, as well as the embodied nature of urban religious experience. They demonstrate how urban studies can be ‘pluralized’ and ‘vernacularized’ through analyses of how the urban realm is constituted in part through religious practice and meaning. Our attention to the articulation of religion with cities in Asia and Africa will also help to foster a new theoretical vocabulary within religious studies that is attentive to the historical, cultural and spatial contingencies of religion as a category of analysis.RésuméCet article présente un symposium sur la religion et la formation de l’espace urbain moderne en Asie et en Afrique. La propagation de mouvements religieux nouveaux, ainsi que les articulations entre religion, mondialisation et néolibéralisme, ont suscité des analyses originales sur le décalage des frontières géographiques et sociales entre les institutions, pratiques et discours “religieux” et “laïcs”, et sur la signification de la religion elle-même. Nous réinscrivons les travaux sur la religion urbaine dans une discussion sur la “modernité” en abordant la médiation socio-spatiale de la religion et son rôle dans la redéfinition des pratiques, normes, discours et espaces publics dans les villes contemporaines. Les différents articles recensent les espaces générés par les imaginaires religieux, ainsi que les formes de mobilité et de réseaux que la religion élabore et sur lesquelles elle s’appuie ; de plus, ils identifient et analysent les rôles des médias dans la pratique religieuse et la construction de l’institution, et s’intéressent à la matérialité de l’expérience religieuse urbaine. Ils montrent comment les études urbaines peuvent être “pluralisées” et “vernacularisées” par le biais d’analyses sur la façon dont l’univers urbain se constitue en partie par la pratique et la signification de la religion. De plus, notre intérêt pour l’articulation de la religion avec les villes d’Asie et d’Afrique contribue à alimenter un nouveau lexique théorique pour les études religieuses, qui veille aux contingences historiques, culturelles et spatiales de la religion en tant que catégorie analysée.Cet article présente un symposium sur la religion et la formation de l’espace urbain moderne en Asie et en Afrique. La propagation de mouvements religieux nouveaux, ainsi que les articulations entre religion, mondialisation et néolibéralisme, ont suscité des analyses originales sur le décalage des frontières géographiques et sociales entre les institutions, pratiques et discours “religieux” et “laïcs”, et sur la signification de la religion elle-même. Nous réinscrivons les travaux sur la religion urbaine dans une discussion sur la “modernité” en abordant la médiation socio-spatiale de la religion et son rôle dans la redéfinition des pratiques, normes, discours et espaces publics dans les villes contemporaines. Les différents articles recensent les espaces générés par les imaginaires religieux, ainsi que les formes de mobilité et de réseaux que la religion élabore et sur lesquelles elle s’appuie ; de plus, ils identifient et analysent les rôles des médias dans la pratique religieuse et la construction de l’institution, et s’intéressent à la matérialité de l’expérience religieuse urbaine. Ils montrent comment les études urbaines peuvent être “pluralisées” et “vernacularisées” par le biais d’analyses sur la façon dont l’univers urbain se constitue en partie par la pratique et la signification de la religion. De plus, notre intérêt pour l’articulation de la religion avec les villes d’Asie et d’Afrique contribue à alimenter un nouveau lexique théorique pour les études religieuses, qui veille aux contingences historiques, culturelles et spatiales de la religion en tant que catégorie analysée.
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In this article I describe a south Indian social movement, headed by a Hindu preceptor. This movement relied on elite women members and on feminine religious idioms to solicit upper-caste consent to Hindu nationalism; with that ideology,... more
In this article I describe a south Indian social movement, headed by a Hindu preceptor. This movement relied on elite women members and on feminine religious idioms to solicit upper-caste consent to Hindu nationalism; with that ideology, it naturalized caste inequalities and attempted to broker alliances between urban elites and the poor. The movement represented upper-caste contestation for hegemonic power, but failed because of indeterminacies attached to its “education of consent” and anti-Brahman political sentiment.
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This book examines the politics of public memory in the southern Indian city of Chennai, a former colonial port now poised to become a center for India's "new economy" of information technology, export processing and back-office services.... more
This book examines the politics of public memory in the southern Indian city of Chennai, a former colonial port now poised to become a center for India's "new economy" of information technology, export processing and back-office services. Using a range of textual, visual, architectural and ethnographic sources, it addresses the question of how people in Chennai remember and represent their past, considering the political and economic contexts and implications of memory practices. It documents state-authorized and voluntary efforts to create a hospitable climate for investment and consumption through regulatory changes and improvements in the tourism infrastructure -- showing how various bodies have sought to fashion a heritage-conscious cityscape and to make Chennai a recognizable "brand" among investment and tourism destinations. Working from specific sites, including a historical district created around an ancient Hindu temple, a living history museum, neo-traditional and vernacular architecture and pollitical memorials, it examines the spatialization of memory under conditions of neoliberalism
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This book challenges readers to rethink the notions of tradition and modernity that have figured centrally in anthropological discussions of social change in South Asia. It shows how Tamil Brahmans deployed the categories of tradition and... more
This book challenges readers to rethink the notions of tradition and modernity that have figured centrally in anthropological discussions of social change in South Asia. It shows how Tamil Brahmans deployed the categories of tradition and modernity, in producing their own class, gender, national and sectarian identities. Through an ethnographic analysis of Brahman women's ritual practices, this books shows how tradition and modernity, and the shifting boundaries between them, are produced and reworked on women's bodies; it shows as well how female subjectivity is invented and reworked through ritually mediated relations among women and between women and the powerful goddesses to whom they are devoted.